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Pitching is a major quality most Internet marketers need to have down to a tee. Anything from creating joint venture partnerships with others to approaching ad networks with a business proposal, pitching is like an art form.

There are many people out there though who do not know how to pitch! On average I receive about 7-10 e-mails per week from either bloggers, ad network representatives and other businesses looking to partner up with me. I turn down 99.99% of them because they are poorly written, include spelling mistakes, don’t make any sense, or are completely off topic to what my niche is.

Here’s an example of the latest pitch I received just this morning:

Mr. Jacobson,
We would interest in you working with us on ____.com. We have revolutionary launch coming in two weeks and would appreciate your review and perhaps endorsement. Please email back with reply to start.

This not only doesn’t make sense, but it lacks basic English language skills. There is absolutely no way I would ever work with anyone who approached me like this. I actually feel embarrassed for them. A quick check as to where this e-mail originated from brought up the Caribbean as the destination of origin. Not to judge or anything, but it was most likely some sort of scam.

So, what does a good pitch look like? Here’s one I received in June.

Hi Chris,

My name is Julie ____, I’m the marketing manager at _____.net. We’ve been following you for the last few months via Twitter and see that you may be targeting the same demographic as us. We specialize in training new affiliates the ins and outs of the business and would certainly like to have you on board as one of our senior mentors. The pay out would be 33% of each membership you help bring us, which is valued at $79.50. Additional bonuses would be paid out when you submit feedback to our members in the private members area.

We’d very much like to discuss this in further detail with you, so please get back to me at your earliest convenience.

The second pitch was to the point, explained exactly what’s in it for me, and provided how much money is at stake. I’d be much more inclined to accept the second offer over the first one any day.

Internet marketers make a living pitching to customers and convincing them to buy something. When it comes to being pitched to ourselves, I think we hold a much higher standard and expect others to as well… something to think about next time you check your e-mail and consider a JV partnership.

It’s always great to get feedback from affiliates…it’s hard to know what you’re looking for unless you tell us (us being networks, potential partners, vendors, etc)! There’s plenty of growth opportunity whether you’re starting a relationship via email, in person, or on a social network.

Jshizzle MynizzleJuly 13th, 2009 at 11:58 pm

Shoemoney just had the same exact post… Well not exactly but pretty much…